


And You Have Time

by stardropdream



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Growing Old Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 17:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5710279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fact that there can be laughter-lines at all is enough for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And You Have Time

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted for the prompt of portamis growing old together but still being just as much in love as before. I AM A SUCKER FOR THIS KIND OF PROMPT.

It’s the end of the day and Porthos sits down slowly, with a small grunt – the pain blooming at the base of his spine and working its way up into his entire back. It started about twenty years ago and while he’s never one to complain, the more time passes, the more he goes his day with that insistent ache. It’s minor – nothing he can’t handle, he’s handled so much worse – but it is an inconvenience. 

Aramis looks up from where he’s mending one of Porthos’ shirts, the needle held firm in his hands despite the age and the quality of light. Even after all these years, they are steady. He stands and goes to Porthos, ducks down into his space, and kisses him – long and slow and simple, banishing away those flashes of pain he sees there. Porthos sighs out, returns the kiss gently. When Aramis draws back, he touches at Porthos’ cheek, slides his fingers along his jaw, and then sets to work at undoing the buttons of Porthos’ coat for him, helps shed it and the pauldron. 

Neither of them is fit for front-line work anymore, but they are still musketeers in their own right. Porthos knows the ache in his own bones are far different from Aramis’ – who still longs for a good fight, but settles for their desk work and the occasional guard detail at the palace – a very different kind of fight that means a very different kind of ache, a heartsore kind of longing that can never ebb, as the dauphin grows and grows, becomes the king. 

Porthos reaches out and takes Aramis’ hands, once his coat is shed, and Aramis smiles at him. There’s crowsfeet now, more grey in his hair than anything else much as Aramis would deny it. Porthos knows he looks much the same. The fact that there can be laughter-lines at all is enough for him. 

Their nightly routine is much the same – settling in, decompressing. They live separately in name only, old enough and unattached enough now that the expectation of married life has escaped them both. Porthos knows it hurts Aramis, some days, when he gets lost in the memories and what-ifs. Porthos himself wasn’t without his opportunities – but he’s always let them slip away, found himself returning to Aramis’ side, no matter how often Aramis doubted. 

Instead, he lets Aramis undress him and take him to bed. They lie down beside one another – old scars built upon older scars – and Porthos takes him into his arms. That, at least, he can still do. His back protests the position he’s in, but for the moment, he just wants to hold Aramis – and so he does. He presses his lips to his forehead, then nuzzles into his hair, his arms sure and strong around him. Aramis’ hands rest first at his chest, feeling his heart, and then up around his neck, tethering him close. He starts kneading at the back of his neck and shoulders, easing out the tensed and old muscles there. Porthos groans out his thanks, sinking into him. 

_I always knew I was the youngest one,_ Aramis said years ago when Porthos first started going grey. They’d laughed about it at the time – an old joke, that Porthos is oldest, and only grows older the more years pass (Aramis spent a good six years being thirty-five). Later that same night, though, Aramis had touched at his shoulders, pinned him to the wall in desperation, and whispered, _You don’t get to die without me._

Now, years later, they are both still alive and holding each other. Aramis breathes out softly against his neck, already easing into sleep – a hard-fought battle after years and years of hardship. Porthos still wakes him sometimes from nightmares. Peacefully, they often have nights pass without any interruption. 

“I love you,” Aramis says, and that too is a battle freely won years ago. Porthos knows Aramis still fears the words – not for what they mean between them, but for what it could mean for Porthos; that he might lose him, that he might leave him, that he might never be enough for Porthos. 

Porthos kisses the top of his head. “I love you, too. Go to sleep.”

And so they do.


End file.
